Point Blank – May 26, 2017
MLB Memorial Weekend, and You Are Who You Are…And part of knowing who each pitcher is means starting to look at DBF…We can lay the Wood, literally, with the Dodgers tonight…
Thursday brought yet one more night without much drama across the NBA hardwoods, but at least there is promise of something special ahead – the Cavaliers have turned their game up enough to offer a challenge to the Warriors in the Finals, and one of the joys for the true fan of the sport will be the opportunity to see how well Golden State can play when pushed to a higher level, something that has happened rarely to this point.
But there will be plenty of time for that next week. For now the focus shifts to the MLB Diamonds on multiple fronts, and as will be the case on Fridays throughout the summer, the classic jukebox will be plugged in for some background to ease your way through the various talking points. Today it is time for the bittersweet tribute to the late Chris Cornell, and while there is so much to choose from across his own writing, I don’t believe that anything fits better than this take of “Imagine”, from 2015 -
Item: It is becoming “You are Who You Are” time
There are some talking points that come into play each season at particular mile markers for the serious MLB handicapper, and many of them get discussed here at the moments in which they kick in. When each starting pitcher has had two games both home and away the current season numbers start to matter; for offenses 10 games home and away; for defense 30 games, etc. There is also that 40/40 rule of when teams have played 40 games, and starting pitchers are beyond 40 innings, the weighting of the current season numbers gets stronger, and it is at that point that one of the major handicapping issues becomes separating past performances and notions from the current realities, especially when those current flows be taking a different direction from the past.
A good timing for this discussion annually is the weekend leading up to Memorial Day, because at this stage there have been enough games played across various circumstances for some smoothing out to have taken place. And what better place to start than at what was the very top of the MLB ladder in 2016, the Cubs and Indians having terrific seasons, and seemingly being built to come back jut as strong this time around.
That has not been the case, of course, and had Milwaukee not lost last night, there would have been the extreme long-shot parlay of the Cubs looking up at the Brewers in the standings, and The Tribe looking up at Minnesota, on May 26. Just think about what the odds of that would have been back in Spring Training. The markets certainly were not expecting it –
2017 Net $$$
Cleveland -8.7
Chicago -6.1
Had someone wagered $100 on both the Indians and Cubs in every game this season they would be down nearly 15 full positions, and that is despite the fact that the two teams have combined to go 49-42. What has happened to the teams Terry Francona and Joe Maddon are managing? Plenty. Let’s go to offense first -
Cubs AVG OBP SLG
2016 .256 .343 .429
2017 .245 .330 .423
Indians
2016 .262 .329 .430
2017 .242 .322 .413
Both are down across the board, and while a case can be made that Chicago will annually under-perform a bit when Wrigley doesn’t just play cool, but sometimes downright cold, in the early season, some of the individual key cogs bring issues. Primary on that front is Kyle Schwarber, who struck out in all four plate appearances on Thursday. So much for relaxing a bit more after being moved to the #2 slot. There are 182 players with enough time in the batters box to register for an offensive WAR rating, and Schwarber checks in this morning at #167.
And then there is defense, where an even bigger story is being told. I have already made the Cubs decline a feature topic here, yet the gloves have been even worse since that date, and the Cleveland season-to-season decline has also been alarming. Let’s go to PADE (Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency) and BABIP allowed as two simple, but trustworthy, measures
Cubs PADE BABIP
2016 #1 .255 (#1)
2017 #15 .294 (#17)
Indians
2016 #10 .289 (#6)
2017 #26 .300 (#22)
Note something particularly important here with Cleveland – that defense has had its impact lessened a bit because the Indians pitching staff is on a record setting pace, still sitting at 10.0 K/9 this late into the season. If that begins to come down, and the ball gets in play a bit more, the defense could become more of a factor.
Yes, the two 2016 World Series combatants are talented teams. Yes, I do expect them to play better the remainder of the season than they have to this point. But baseball history tells us that by this stage it is often a case of “You Are Who You Are”, which could mean that while they may indeed elevate their games, they may not set off the kind of fireworks many of you will see at celebrations on Monday night.
And in terms of defining performers more based on their 2017 numbers than the past, this is also right around the time that we can begin weaving DBF into the daily discussions.
Item: And it is also DBF time
Strength of schedule is a major factor in any sport, but one of the difficulties in some of them, like NCAA Football, is that by the time there have been enough games played for the ratings to really matter, it is already late in the season. The MLB campaign offers us something better than any other sport in this regard – these days we are not limited to factoring the pitcher’s numbers against the teams they have matched up against, but can literally go to each individual batter. With enough pitches and swings to the 2017 season in play it now becomes time to begin making this a part of individual pitcher power ratings, and along comes Difficulty of Batters Faced.
I simplify this by using OPS as the guide, although I do spend time looking at the other individual hitting components to get a better feel. So let’s get to the current season, and look at the toughest competition, and weakest, of the 118 pitchers that have worked at least 40 innings –
Five Toughest
1. Ubaldo Jimenez .791
2. Jake Arrieta .767
3. Matt Moore .767
4. Tyler Anderson .764
5. Nate Karns .762
Five Easiest
114. Taijuan Walker .689
115. Patrick Corbin .687
116. Hector Santiago .687
117. Alex Wood .686
118. Clayton Kershaw .668
Baseball logic, of course, tells us that we don’t have to penalize Kershaw for this because we know who he is. But let’s set some perspective with a bit of a visual –
Average Jimenez Opponent: A.J. Pollock
Average Kershaw Opponent: Eduardo Nunez
That is a rather significant gap. Face nine Pollock’s in every game, or face nine hitters with the Nunez batting profile, and the paths are indeed much different.
The gap from top to bottom will narrow over the course of the season, but it should come as no surprise that four of the five easiest (and six of 11 when you open up the table a bit more), come from the NL West, and pitchers that have had some opportunities to face the Padres and Giants.
Item: To aid in your weekend MLB Handicapping
One of the PB bonuses that we have going through the Baseball summer will be the good folks at MatchupCenter coming into the on-running weekend thread each Saturday with a “Game of the Day”, a way to look inside the myriad of statistics that can be used to find edges. This Saturday they will also be doing a Webinar at Noon Central to go through some of those key categories, and to register for that you can send an e-mail to cs@matchupcenter.com.
In the Sights, Friday MLB…
This one is sitting right at the very value edge, but since the talking points are worth exploring let’s delve into it with #912 LA Dodgers (10:10 Eastern) going into pocket, with -130 the target, which may be a tough find as the day goes on (as is always the case if you have to lay a few pennies more, it means that you bet a few pennies less). Yes, there are schedule components that have made Jake Arrieta look worse than he has, and Alex Wood better than his bottom line, but the Cubs continue to be priced on the wrong shelf, and in going beyond the DBF tables there is plenty to see with these starters.
Wood made his first appearance in this spot on the page in a dominating win over the Pirates a couple of weeks ago, and there just isn’t anything wrong with what is coming from his left arm. Do you want to have some real fun?
ERA FIP xFIP SIERA
Wood 1.88 1.89 2.38 2.58
Kershaw 2.01 2.63 2.84 2.94
Of course you take that with a grain of salt, Wood isn’t Kershaw and never will be. But there is nothing fluky about what he is doing, not only having the #1 GB% in the Majors this season (67.6), but also rating in the upper tier with a 29.9 K%. If you can both throw the ball past hitters (12.0 SWS%), and keep it on the ground when they do make contact, you can be on your way to something special. And speaking of special, there hasn’t been a more effective performer in MLB than Kenley Jansen, who carries a ridiculous 0.09 FIP this late into the campaign, not only having struck out 49.3 percent of all batters, but still not having walked one yet. This will not be an easy evening for the Cubs offense.
It may not be easy for Arrieta either. Naturally some of his decline can be traced to the defense behind him having struggled, but let’s make this a long-term thing with him –
ERA FIP GB% HR/FB MPH
2015 1.77 2.35 56.2 7.8 94.4
2016 3.10 3.52 52.6 11.1 93.6
2017 4.80 3.92 41.3 14.3 91.7
Not only is Arrieta having a difficult time keeping the ball down, but when he has elevated a higher rate of balls are being tagged. That latter point matters – it isn’t just more home runs because of more fly balls, but it is in the rate of HR/FB having rising so sharply in back-to-back campaigns. And note that there have already been seven unearned runs not attached to his ERA, after only four in all of 2016. Perhaps the most telling stat of all is that average fastball velocity – working over 400 innings across 2015 and 2016 may have taken a significant toll.
In the Sights, Sunday MLB…
The oddsmakers were the ones in the batter’s box for Mariners/Red Sox today, having to hit the curveball of trying to price Christian Bergman to a market that may want no part of him, and I believe they went too far. So with “10” still available in several key precincts this morning, and 9.5 also ringing the value bell, it will be #922 Boston/Seattle Under (1:35 Eastern) going into pocket. When was the last time this plateau was made available when one of the teams had been held to a single run or less seven times across the last eight games?
Here is the gist – prior to the fourth inning at Washington on Wednesday night, Bergman had actually been having a positive 2017, a potential rebirth for him in his first season of pitching for someone other than the Rockies. He opened 5-0/2.17 at AAA, and in his first two starts for the Mariners was serviceable in a 4-0 loss at Toronto, then downright sharp in a 4-0 win over Oakland (nine strikeouts vs. only four base-runners). But then came that fourth frame on Wednesday, when a 2-0 deficit turned to 10-0, Scott Servais leaving Bergman out there the entire time, which should not have happened. Seattle had been off the day before, so it wasn’t about a tired bullpen, but Servais turned it into a “take one for the team” inning, and that game is going to carry a lot of weight on the Bergman statistics going forward. He isn’t anything special, but he is a pro, and with only Casey Lawrence working yesterday afternoon the bullpen behind him is well-set.
Rick Porcello also helps to bring value here, a perception of him having crashed in going from 22-4/3.15 to the current 3-5/4.35, but has anything really changed?
FIP xFIP SIERA
2016 3.40 3.89 3.78
2017 3.73 3.81 3.66
There has been a major fluctuation in BABIP, from .269 to .354, but as that normalizes so will his bottom line, and courtesy of Brian Johnson’s complete game, the entire Boston bullpen is rested and ready, on an overcast day with a slight breeze in the favor of the pitchers.
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